Americans were outraged over a recent incident in which a group of white kids from Kentucky taunted a Native American elder in Washington, DC. It appeared that a racist mindset played a role in the actions of the MAGA-cap wearing kids as they reportedly chanted, “Build that wall!,” apparently ignorant of the fact that Native Americans are not the target of Trump’s wall. Apologists for the kids later suggested that the their behavior was the fault of the Native American or that Black Israelite protestors had provoked them. In any case, racist ignorance is not limited to kids from Kentucky as it is the signature of the nearly 18-year long War on Terror that a majority of Americans support.

According to a national poll taken in September last year, 56% of Americans believe that the U.S. is “winning The War on Terror.” That dubious war began as a response to the crimes of September 11, 2001 and has been used as the driving force to kill half a million people and destroy the lives of many more. The terrorism that this war allegedly confronts conveniently originates in geographical areas that are most important for the production and transport of strategic natural resources. It also reflects a “grand strategy” that was defined two years before 9/11 by people who are suspected of actually committing the crimes.

The pervasive anti-Muslim racism that has evolved from the 9/11 Wars is a form of cultural racism that requires the victims to have little more than brown skin. The public has become easily manipulated by fear and their most banal, racist tendencies into accepting horrific crimes committed in their names including mass murder, torture, and indefinite incarceration. The victims don’t need to have any solid evidence against them and they only need to look like “the enemy,” to use a dubious term from the 9/11 Commission Report.

An example was recently revealed when a judge stated that the conviction of the first alleged Muslim terrorist after 9/11, Hamid Hayat, should be vacated. Hayat did not commit a crime but was accused of having trained in an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan and of returning as part of a sleeper cell. The evidence presented was allegedly gained from interrogation of Hayat and his father, in which they both accepted what FBI interrogators suggested after long hours of abuse. The father’s “confession” was obviously absurd in that he “described visiting his son’s camp and finding 1,000 men wearing black Ninja Turtle masks and performing “pole vaulting” exercises in huge basement rooms.” Further evidence against Hayat came from the testimony of a well-paid FBI informant, whose own mother said he was “a bagful of lies.”

Nonetheless, in the post-9/11 hysteria fueled by racism, America bought the story of Hayat being a terrorist. This was despite the affidavits of 18 family and community members who swore that Hayat could not have attended an al Qaeda training camp because they saw him every day during the period in question.

Another example of the racism and ignorance that has fueled American perceptions since 9/11 was seen with the San Bernardino shooting in 2015. This was a sensationalized mass murder in which most of the evidence was ignored in favor of an official account that accused a brown-skinned, Muslim husband and wife. Contrary to the unchallenged accusation, the evidence suggests that the attackers were three white men who appeared to be special operations soldiers.

The most important example of how racism and ignorance define public opinion about terrorism involves the first alleged al Qaeda leader captured after 9/11, Abu Zubaydah. One of the forty men still imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center, Zubaydah was tortured extensively based on numerous claims from top U.S. leaders that he was a leading al Qaeda operative. Those claims have since been revealed to be completely false. Today, everyone agrees that Zubaydah was never associated with al Qaeda in any way.

The problem that both Zubaydah and the U.S. government have is that the official account of 9/11 was based on information allegedly gained from his torture. We know that Zubaydah could not have known any of that information and that is very problematic for the entire War on Terror. In other words, if not for the alleged torture testimony of Zubaydah and the people he reportedly identified, KSM and Ramsi bin Alshibh in particular, the 9/11 Commission Report would have little evidentiary basis. If Zubaydah was to be released or exonerated, it could bring the whole house of cards down, revealing 9/11 to be a lie. That’s undoubtedly why Zubaydah has now been classified as a “forever prisoner.”

Americans did not question the obvious falsehoods behind the conviction of Hamid Hayat. They have not questioned the obvious falsehoods behind the official account for the San Bernardino shooting. They have not questioned the many other instances in which U.S. authorities blatantly manufactured stories of Muslim terrorism. And they have not called for the release of Abu Zubaydah or the reconciliation of the official account of 9/11 with his false torture testimony.

How can Americans continue to buy into all the obvious falsehoods that have led to the torture, imprisonment, and murder of countless people who just happen to have brown skin? Only willful ignorance and racism can explain why the public accepts and supports these weak excuses for the War on Terror. The outrage at kids taunting a Native American is therefore hypocritical for many Americans. On this Martin Luther King Jr. Day, if we really despise racism we should all speak out against the “starless midnight of racism and war” that began with 9/11.

In 2008, Harvard professors Cass Sunstein and Adrian Vermeule proposed that the government should engage in “cognitive infiltration” of citizen groups that seek the truth about 9/11. The proposal was that government operatives, whether anonymous or otherwise, should infiltrate and disrupt the groups. They wrote, “Government agents (and their allies) might enter chat rooms, online social networks, or even real-space groups and attempt to undermine percolating conspiracy theories by raising doubts about their factual premises, causal logic or implications for political action. “

The following year, this anti-Constitutional stance was rewarded when Sunstein was made director of the White House Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs. Members of the 9/11 Truth Movement responded with detailed criticism.

Of course, the idea of infiltrating a grassroots action group, to disrupt and defame its members, was not new. The FBI program called COINTELPRO was a widely reported example after it was revealed in the early 1970s to have infiltrated citizen groups seeking civil rights and peace. After being revealed, COINTELPRO techniques continued at the FBI and elsewhere in government.

Since 9/11, journalists have noted that government infiltration of political groups is no longer a rare exception but is the norm. The goals of such infiltration are to destabilize and prevent citizen dissent by creating a negative public image for the target group and conflict within the group. Infiltration is easy when it comes to a grassroots movement like 9/11 Truth. That is, you cannot just claim to be a 9/11 Commission member or an employee of a government agency but anyone can say they are a truth seeker. The beauty of this for government operatives is that they can control both sides of the conversation.

To make a significant impact, however, an infiltrator needs to quickly move into a position as a leading voice for the movement. One way in which this was done, even before Sunstein’s proposal, was through a social variant of the physical principle called the “gravitational assist.” The physical principle leverages the movement and gravitational pull of a moon or planet to slingshot a spacecraft into a higher velocity trajectory by moving the path of the spacecraft near the larger body. The social variant is when a brief association with a leading voice in a group lends someone credibility that they would otherwise not have.

Examples of the gravitational assist occurred when physicist Steven Jones made news in September 2005 for challenging the official account of the World Trade Center destruction. People wanted their photo taken with him and he was invited to speak at many events. Soon afterward, Jim Fetzer, previously unknown to 9/11 investigators, dramatically announced that he and Jones were starting a new “scholars” group to challenge the official account of 9/11. That association led to Fetzer discrediting Jones and others through association with absurd concepts like Star Wars beams and holograms at the WTC.

It was later learned that Fetzer was an expert on the use of disinformation yet he and his colleagues Morgan Reynolds and Judy Woods went on to link 9/11 questioning with many preposterous ideas. They created nonsensical hypotheses and promoted them through mass emails targeting media representatives and others in order to present the 9/11 Truth Movement as a ludicrous spectacle.

When recently asked to help reveal more of what happened during that time, it occurred to me that people could benefit from learning the general techniques used to disrupt grassroots movements. Examined more closely, the techniques used by infiltrators or disruptors can be seen as expressions of commonly known rules of debate. Specifically, the rules are reflected in philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer’s sarcastic publication, The Art of Being Right: 38 Ways to Win an Argument. Here are a few examples of how these techniques were used to disrupt 9/11 questioning.

“The Extension” takes a proposal beyond its intended limits so that the extended proposal can be refuted and thereby make the original statement sound weaker. A 9/11 example took the question about whether an aircraft had actually hit the Pentagon and extended it to all other aspects of 9/11. Therefore if there was no plane at the Pentagon then there were no planes at all, and no alleged hijackers, and so on.

“The Homonymy” is a misuse of a proposition through use of similar words. The government agency NIST utilized this method effectively by replacing words in its reports with weaker homonyms, making it easier for the unprecedented destruction of the WTC to sound more plausible. Therefore fireproofing became “insulation” and joists became “trusses.”

Using the “Postulate What Has to Be Proved” rule, 9/11 disruptors presented and then destroyed their own straw man arguments. That is, they first framed the questions in simplified, diverting ways and then refuted those “straw man” frames. This was the go to technique of the “debunkers” at Popular Mechanics.

The method of “Make Your Opponent Angry” was frequently used. Through the years, infiltrators often resorted to baseless accusations, threats, and absurd insinuations. Luckily, this could be easily spotted.

In the “Agree to Reject the Counter-Proposition” technique, the disruptor frames the issue as two very distinct options. This is the “split screen” method that FOX News used so well over many years to move national discussions toward extreme views. With 9/11, it was again most well demonstrated by arguments over the Pentagon in which everyone was either a “planer” or a “no-planer.” All other questioning about the Pentagon event was forsaken as a result of this mindless dichotomy.

Using “Arguments Ad Hominem,” Schopenhauer described how the opponent could be shown to be inconsistent and therefore untrustworthy. With 9/11 questioning, disruptors often attacked the person (ad hominem) rather than the argument itself.

Fetzer helped the government deflect questions by using the “Make Him Exaggerate His Statement” technique in which “when you refute this exaggerated form of it, you look as though you had also refuted his original statement.” In the short time that he was in the 9/11 limelight, Fetzer would begin every interview with the claim that my former company UL had “certified the steel used in the World Trade center to 2000 degrees for six hours.” Despite being an incorrect exaggeration, Fetzer continued to use it even after that fact was made clear to him. Ultimately this allowed the government agency NIST to refute Fetzer’s exaggerated claim, quoting it word for word, rather than address true questions about UL’s certification of the WTC steel components.

In the “Find One Instance to the Contrary” method, the disruptor simply finds one example of when a proposition was not met. For example, a disruptor would argue that because the WTC towers were destroyed from the top down, they could not be demolitions because all demolitions occur from the bottom up. This was the argument from “skeptic” Michael Shermer when I debated him on Air America radio in 2007. In order to support his contention, Shermer casually claimed to have watched thousands of demolition videos during the 2-minute radio break. Unfortunately for him, a top-down demolition was posted on a leading 9/11 truth website which I referred to at the time.

With the “Put His Thesis into Some Odious Category” technique, 9/11 questioning was frequently conflated with positions that were seen as hateful or stupid. This led to some members of the media lumping “truthers” in with “birthers,” holocaust deniers, and those who question the moon landings.

In retrospect, it is comforting to know that so much effort at disruption was needed to prevent 9/11 questions from taking over the national discussion. It means that many people were informed to some degree and that citizen groups working for the truth were seen as a threat to a corrupt system. Many people are now aware that terrorism events are not as simple as the government and mainstream media portray them.

People need to be able to recognize infiltration of grassroots movements because the system will not change on its own. It’s likely that only a catastrophic and catalyzing realization on the part of a large segment of society will lead to any real change and recognizing the techniques of disruption could help achieve that realization.

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller has been in the news lately due to his inquiry into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections. After a 12-year stint leading the Bureau, the longest ever since J. Edgar Hoover, Mueller is now seen by many as an honest man serving the interest of the American public. However, that perception cannot be defended once one knows about Mueller’s past.

What some people don’t know about Mueller is that he has a long history of leading government investigations that were diversions or cover-ups. These include the investigation into the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, the investigation into the terrorist financing Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), and the FBI investigations into the crimes of September 11th, 2001. Today the public is beginning to realize that Mueller’s investigation into Russian collusion with the Trump campaign is a similar diversion.

Mueller’s talents were noticed early in his career at the Justice Department. As a U.S. Attorney in Boston during the mid-80s, he helped falsely convict four men for murders they didn’t commit in order to protect a powerful FBI informant—mobster James “Whitey” Bulger.” According to the Boston Globe, “Mueller was also in that position while Whitey Bulger was helping the FBI cart off his criminal competitors even as he buried bodies in shallow graves along the Neponset.”

Mueller was then appointed as chief investigator of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am 103 in Scotland. The account Mueller produced was a flimsy story that accused a Libyan named Megrahi of coordinating placement of a suitcase bomb that allegedly traveled unaccompanied through several airports to find its way to the doomed flight. Despite Mueller’s persistent defense of this unbelievable tale, Megrahi was released from prison in 2009 and died three years later in Libya.

With the Pan Am 103 case, Mueller was covering up facts related to some of the of victims of the bombing—a group of U.S. intelligence specialists led by Major Charles McKee of the Defense Intelligence Agency. McKee had gone to Beirut to find and rescue hostages and, while there, learned about CIA involvement in a drug smuggling operation run through an agency project called COREA. As TIME magazine reported, the likely explanation for the bombing, supported by independent intelligence experts, was that U.S. operatives “targeted Flight 103 in order to kill the hostage-rescue team.” This would prevent disclosure of what McKee’s team had learned. That theory was also supported by the fact that the CIA showed up immediately at the scene of the crash, took McKee’s briefcase, and returned it empty.

Mueller’s diversions led to his leadership of the Criminal Division at the U.S. Department of Justice, putting him in charge of investigations regarding BCCI. When Mueller started in that role, members of Congress and the media were already critical of the government’s approach to the BCCI affair. Mueller came into the picture telling the Washington Post that there was an “appearance of, one, foot-dragging; two, perhaps a cover-up.” Later he denied the cover-up claim and the suggestion that the CIA may have collaborated with BCCI operatives.

But again, Mueller was simply brought in to accomplish the cover-up. The facts were that BCCI was used by the CIA to operate outside of the rule of law through funding of terrorists and other criminal operatives. The bank network was at the root of some of the greatest crimes against the public in the last 50 years, including the Savings & Loan scandal, the Iran-Contra affair, and the creation of the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Mueller was instrumental in obstructing the BCCI investigation led by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau. During this time, Justice Department prosecutors were instructed not to cooperate with Morgenthau. Describing Mueller’s obstruction of Morgenthau, the Wall Street Journal reportedthat, “documents were withheld, and attempts were made to block other federal agencies from cooperating.”

Describing Mueller’s role in the BCCI cover-up more clearly, reporter Chris Floyd wrote:

“When a few prosecutors finally began targeting BCCI’s operations in the late Eighties, President George Herbert Walker Bush boldly moved in with a federal probe directed by Justice Department investigator Robert Mueller. The U.S. Senate later found that the probe had been unaccountably ‘botched’–witnesses went missing, CIA records got ‘lost,’… Lower-ranking prosecutors told of heavy pressure from on high to ‘lay off.’ Most of the big BCCI players went unpunished or, like [Khalib bin] Mahfouz, got off with wrist-slap fines and sanctions. Mueller, of course, wound up as head of the FBI, appointed to the post in July 2001–by George W. Bush.”

Yes, in the summer of 2001, when the new Bush Administration suspected it would soon need a cover-up, Mueller was brought in for the job. Although suspect Louis Freeh was FBI Director in the lead-up to the crimes, Mueller knew enough to keep things under wraps. He also had some interesting ties to other 9/11 suspects like Rudy Giuliani, whose career paralleled Mueller’s closely during the Reagan and first Bush administrations.

Under Mueller, the FBI began the whitewash of 9/11 immediately. Mueller himself lied repeatedly in the direct aftermath with respect to FBI knowledge of the accused hijackers. He claimed that the alleged hijackers left no paper trail, and suggested that they exercised “extraordinary secrecy” and “discipline never broke down.” In fact, “ring leader” Mohamed Atta went to great lengths to draw attention to himself prior to the attacks. Moreover, the evidence the accused men supposedly left behind was obvious and implausibly convenient for the FBI.

Meanwhile, Mueller’s FBI immediately seized control of the investigations at the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and in Shanksville, PA where United Flight 93 was destroyed. Under Mueller, leaders of the Bureau went on to arrest and intimidate witnesses, destroy or withhold evidence, and prevent any independent investigation. With Mueller in the lead, the FBI failed to cooperate with the government investigations into 9/11 and failed miserably to perform basic investigatory tasks. Instead, Mueller celebrated some of the most egregious pre-9/11 failures of the FBI by giving those involved promotions, awards, and cash bonuses.

As FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley later wrote with regard to 9/11, “Robert Mueller (and James Comey as deputy attorney general) presided over a cover-up.” Kristen Breitweiser, one of the four 9/11 widows known as the “Jersey Girls,” stated something similar:

“Mueller and other FBI officials had purposely tried to keep any incriminating information specifically surrounding the Saudis out of the Inquiry’s investigative hands. To repeat, there was a concerted effort by the FBI and the Bush Administration to keep incriminating Saudi evidence out of the Inquiry’s investigation.”

“Though the recently filed court documents reveal Mueller received a briefing about the Sarasota Saudi investigation, the FBI continued to publicly deny it existed and it appears that the lies were approved by Mueller.”

Mueller’s FBI went on to “botch” the investigation into the October 2001 anthrax attacks. As expected, the result was a long series of inexplicable diversions that led nowhere. The anthrax attacks occurred at a time when Mueller himself was warning Americans that another 9/11 could occur at any time (despite his lack of interest in the first one). They also provided the emotional impetus for Americans and Congress to accept the Patriot Act, which had been written prior to 9/11. Exactly why Mueller’s expertise was needed is not yet known but examining the evidence suggests that the anthrax attackers were the same people who planned 9/11.

With knowledge of Mueller’s past, people can see that he is not in the news today to reveal important information about Russia and the Trump Administration. To the contrary, Mueller is in the news to divert attention away from important information and, most likely, to prevent the Trump Administration from being scrutinized in any real way.

People today spend a lot of time talking about conspiracy theories. These theories often do harm because they divert attention away from the facts and thereby allow real crimes and other harmful effects to continue. Such conspiracy theories can be spotted based on three basic characteristics.

They lack evidence.

They spread widely before the facts are examined.

Much simpler alternatives are not considered.

For example, take the most popular conspiracy theory of recent times—the official account for the crimes of 9/11.

This theory was produced by mythologist Philip Zelikow, who, before the investigation began, created an outline that was kept secret from his own Commission staff. Zelikow’s outline determined the outcome of the investigation before any facts were examined. Moreover, the 9/11 Commission claimed sixty-three times in its report that it could find “no evidence” related to important aspects of the crimes. Evidence that the Commission did rely on, as a basis for its report, was later found to be false. Similarly, the evidence collected and held secret by World Trade Center investigating agency NIST was later found to contradict the agency’s conclusions. Much of that evidence is still being held secret including the computer model data that NIST was forced to substitute for physical testing that contradicted its conclusions.

The conspiracy theory reports provided by the 9/11 Commission and NIST spread quickly before anyone could examine them. Getting government representatives to commit to any explanation for what had happened on 9/11 took years but, once ready, news media sources were prepped in advance to allow rapid parroting of the official line. The timing of NIST’s reports coincided with political events, like each anniversary of the 9/11 crimes, so that media could quickly present the official story while public interest was high but critical review was not possible. With the report on WTC 7, the public was given just three weeks to comment on a report that was nearly seven years in the making. The report was later found to be unscientific and false.

The official conspiracy theory for 9/11 calls for belief in unbelievable things. That is, to believe the official account you must accept that otherwise honest military leaders will lie repeatedly for years to make themselves look bad. Buildings will collapse in unprecedented ways, through the path of most resistance, with no scientific evidence to explain it. The Secret Service will fail to do its job, insider trading can occur with no insiders, and “the enemy”—a vaguely defined group of dark-skinned people who just happen to live on strategically critical resources—can remain omnipotent and elusive. All the while, much simpler explanations are evident but cannot be considered.

The official conspiracy theory for 9/11 has led to tremendously harmful effects. Many Americans have forgotten completely what it means to be an American. An ongoing terrorism lottery, that could select any of us as a victim at any time, continues with no end in sight. And the 9/11 Wars that were based on the official account are bankrupting the nation both financially and morally.

Yes, conspiracy theories are a problem when not examined closely. Let’s all take a closer look at this one.

In 1948, The New Yorker published what would become one of the most famous short stories in American literature. This was The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson, which told the tale of a community that, once every year, selected a citizen to be stoned to death in order to ensure a good harvest.

Jackson was flooded with hate mail after her story was published. Some readers thought the story represented a real situation and others were offended that anyone could imagine such a scenario. Although the story was meant to depict only the idea of mindless violence and apathy in human society, in the 21st century it has become a reflection of the general attitude toward terrorism.

Consider the crimes of 9/11. As in The Lottery, on a bright, summer day, people were selected to die by means of their presence at the World Trade Center, at the Pentagon, and on the hijacked flights. They weren’t stoned to death but they were killed by willful ignorance. That’s because much of the public never wanted to know the truth about previous terrorist incidents and simply accepted dubious government accounts.

For example, neither the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing nor the tragedy of the USS Cole in October 2000 were examined closely by most people. The mindless acceptance of the official accounts for these events led to the crimes of 9/11, after which the indifference to facts was taken to the next level. What facts were ignored after 9/11? The list would be endless but here are a few examples.

Insider trading related to 9/11 was ignored and the suspects were not even questioned by the FBI or the 9/11 Commission.

The third skyscraper that fell that day, in an obvious demolition event (WTC Building 7), was simply not mentioned in the 9/11 Commission Report.

Eyewitness testimony was hidden from the public for years and later ignored. This included the testimony of firefighters who said that explosives were going off throughout the WTC towers.

Building construction codes were not changed as a result of the root causes cited by the government for destruction of the WTC buildings, meaning the government explanation was effectively ignored by the building construction community.

Everyone agrees that the public was lied to about the failure of the national air defenses that day. The question avoided is whether to believe the government story that the U.S. military lied repeatedly for years to make itself look bad, or the much simpler explanation that the 9/11 Commission lied in its final report to divert attention away from the whole matter.

The government reports on the destruction of the WTC buildings ignored basic laws of science and would have failed peer review. Meanwhile the only actual peer-reviewed science on the subject, for example this, and this, and this, and this, went unheeded.

By ignoring the facts related to 9/11, the public has prepared itself to be terrorized on a regular basis. Recurring acts of terrorism follow a formula that is transparent to anyone who cares to examine the evidence beyond simply accepting corporate media reports.

An outstanding example is the San Bernardino shooting of December 2015. The Los Angeles Timesreported that, a year after the San Bernardino shooting, “federal officials acknowledge they still don’t have answers to some of the critical questions.” San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said, “We never established the motive. The best we can do is theorize.”

This was a mass shooting in which most of the evidence was ignored in favor of an official account that accused a brown-skinned, Muslim husband and wife. Contrary to the unchallenged accusation, the evidence suggests that the attackers were three white men who appeared to be special operations soldiers.

Although a black SUV was later found shot up badly, no convincing evidence was ever produced showing how the accused were driving or shooting from the SUV. Moreover, the attorney representing the family said the accused appear to have been handcuffed and lying face down in the vehicle when found. As with 9/11, the accused were conveniently dead.

The fourteen people killed in San Bernardino were just like the nearly 3,000 killed on 9/11. They were sacrificial lottery winners, murdered not simply by the perpetrators of the crime but by fellow citizens who continue to ignore the facts about terrorist events. The lack of objective examination of terrorist acts suggests that we might as well stone to death future victims because it is the public’s apathy that allows terrorism to continue.

Who will be next? As with Shirley Jackson’s novel we are all in the lottery of terrorism. Unless we take action to investigate and communicate the facts about terrorist events our names will remain in the pool to be selected at random. Only a concerted and persistent effort to question each new terrorist act, as well as those of the last few decades, will remove our names from the list.

In 2017, hundreds of thousands of Americans took to the streets to protest the Trump Administration’s denial of science. This began with the “March for Science” in April and continued throughout the year with scientists and supporters trying to find their political voice. However, most people in this new science-promoting movement willfully deny basic laws of science when those laws relate to one particularly sensitive subject of national discourse.

For example, many Americans have denied the Law of Conservation of Momentum as it relates to the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. This point was made in a peer-reviewed scientific paper published in a journal of civil engineering (see point #5). Although conservation of momentum is taught and understood by students in secondary school, the alleged violation of this law is widely accepted by those who are faced with the obvious, evidence-based alternative that explosives were used to bring the buildings down.

Similarly, Americans who support the official account have also denied the Law of the Conservation of Angular Momentum. In this case, the top section of the south tower rotated off its axis and should have continued rotating and falling intact along the side of the building but it did not. Instead the top section was simply pulverized in mid air by unseen forces.

The Law of the Conservation of Energy was also violated on 9/11, if one believes the official government account. One way in which this can be seen is with regard to temperatures needed to achieve the government’s claim that steel softened throughout a wide swath of each building. The jet fuel and office furnishings in the Twin Towers did not provide the energy needed for the steel components to reach temperatures needed to soften steel. More importantly, molten metal was observed at the site of the WTC destruction and this fact can only be explained by the presence of thermitic materials, for which there is an enormous amount of evidence.

The U.S. government took great pains over a period of years to ignore the evidence for what actually happened at the WTC site while taking a politically driven, anti-scientific approach to it. Sadly, subsequent administrations and many professional scientists have ignored this political abuse of science in order to avoid sensitive implications that could threaten their careers. Today’s science-promoting Americans have, in many cases, also ignored the evidence and have therefore practiced the opposite of what they preach. That is, abuse of science is bad when Trump does it but is perfectly acceptable when “conspiracy theories” are the only other choice.

When Americans are truly willing to stand up for science no matter the political implications, society might begin to heal from the violence and destruction of American values that began with those fateful crimes. Until then, the world will continue to suffer the consequences of the willful ignorance of science in America.

It has been 16 years since the crimes of September 11th, 2001. In that time, facts have been revealed that led more than a third of Americans to believe that the U.S government was involved in the attacks. This blog noted 14 such incredible facts on the 14th anniversary of the crimes. Here are 16 more.

In the nine years before 9/11, the FBI failed miserably at preventing terrorism. There are many examples of how FBI leadership under director Louis Freeh facilitated and covered-up acts of terrorism during this time. After 9/11, the FBI took extraordinary measures to hide evidence related to the attacks.

CIA director George Tenet led an agency that also failed in its duties related to counterterrorism and those failures appear to have been intentional. Like Freeh, Tenet had developed secret paths of communication with Saudi authorities. The facts suggest that Tenet facilitated the crimes of 9/11.

The FBI and CIA have made a mockery of the U.S. justice system as it relates to 9/11. While these agencies are suspected of involvement, they have charged others with the crimes using secret evidence in a secret military trial. The accused have been held in seclusion for nearly 15 years while FBI and CIA agents attempt to insert themselves as defense team members, ensuring total control of the narrative.

CIA officers responsible for identifying deception in others fail to notice that the characteristics of deception are amply demonstrated when government representatives respond to questions about 9/11.

There have been four, distinctly different, official accounts given for how the North American air defense system failed to intercept any of the hijacked planes. The last account says that dozens of military officers spent years lying to Congress, the 9/11 Commission, and everyone else, in ways that made the military look bad. Few observers considered the simpler explanation—that the 9/11 Commission lied to divert attention from many difficult questions.

Parts of the official account of 9/11 are based on the highly improbable flight path of a military cargo plane called Gofer 06. The crew of this plane witnessed the crashes of two of the four planes that day despite those crashes occurring 127 miles and less than 30 minutes apart.

There are dozens of unanswered questions about the events at the Pentagon and the plane that reportedly crashed there.

The 19 young men accused within 72-hours of the attacks were known to enjoy strip bars, alcohol, drugs, and other things that are clearly non-Muslim activities. Moreover, these suspects were not capable of accomplishing most of what was needed to pull off the crimes.

Mohamed Atta, the man called the “9/11 ringleader,” had a lot in common with Lee Harvey Oswald—the man accused of killing President Kennedy. Both Atta and Oswald were suspected of using illicit drugs, seemed to be protected by authorities, and were associated with CIA-linked entities.

The New York Times led the propaganda behind the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003 and it also led the propaganda behind the cover-up of the 9/11 crimes. It did so by ignoring many of the most relevant facts, by promoting false official accounts, and by belittling those who questioned the 9/11 events.

On the day of the attacks, firefighters, journalists, survivors, and eyewitnesses testified to secondary explosions in the World Trade Center buildings. Videos of these testimonies were held secret for years by the government agency NIST and released only via FOIA request after public interest died down. Scientists have explained that the towers came down due to explosions and that the NIST investigation was fraudulent.

Among the evidence ignored by the mainstream media are many facts indicating the presence of thermite at the World Trade Center. Thermite is a chemical mixture that can be used to melt and cut structural steel. Instead of addressing this evidence, supporters of the official account have engaged in deception and distraction in order to obfuscate the facts.

Despite recent, worldwide protests against the abuse of science, the most glaring example of politically motivated pseudoscience continues to be ignored by many scientists. That is the 7-year sequence of contradictory explanations provided by U.S. government investigators for the destruction of the WTC buildings.

Links between 9/11 and the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City lead to questions about the company that controlled security for many of the facilities impacted on 9/11, including the WTC complex. For instance, that WTC security company shared the same OKC airport office later occupied by the flight trainer for Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged “20th” hijacker.

Media and certain government representatives have hinted at Saudi Arabian ties to the 9/11 crimes. However, those hints always omit the most interesting links between the 9/11 attacks and Saudi Arabia—links that implicate powerful people in the United States.

When the long-awaited 28 pages missing from the Congressional Joint Inquiry Report into 9/11 were finally released, those pages reinforced concerns that deep state players were involved in the attacks. Such players include Wirt D. Walker, the CEO of the WTC security company, who is clearly associated with top-secret operations.

As the crimes of 9/11 continue to go unsolved and largely unquestioned, Americans should be aware that another 9/11 could happen at any time. If it does, the ongoing failure to question obvious deception in terrorism could take society to places where freedom to question is no longer an option.